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An intergenerational meeting between two late blues guitar gods – Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan – will be revived on CD and vinyl in a new expanded package.

Originally recorded in 1983 and first released in 1999, In Session features the six-stringers trading licks on a Canadian television program of the same name, when King was a 60-year-old living legend and Vaughan a young upstart who’d turned heads with his licks on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance before releasing his own powerful debut Texas Flood with his trio Double Trouble. As King recounts in one of the bits of between-song banter on the album, he initially balked at the idea of playing with someone unknown to him, until he realized he had known Vaughan as the “skinny kid” who’d sat in with him at a gig at Austin’s venerated blues club Antone’s, some six years earlier.

The performance as aired largely focused on King’s preferred set, including originals (“Blues At Sunrise,” “Overall Junction”) and long-established standards (“Call It Stormy Monday,” “Match Box Blues,” “Don’t Lie to Me”). The duo did, however, play one of Texas Flood‘s standout tracks, “Pride and Joy,” with Stevie Ray leading the charge on vocals and guitar. In 2010, a CD/DVD was released that offered three additional performances filmed for the broadcast, including King’s signature “Born Under a Bad Sign,” the standard “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town,” and another SRV tune, the title track to Texas Flood. For the first time, this 2CD or 3LP set will include all of that audio, presented in its original sequence.

In Session will be reissued by Craft Recordings on October 18. Pre-order links are below; as an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

In Session (Deluxe Edition) (originally released as Stax SCD-7501-2, 1999 – reissued Stax/Craft Recordings CR00676, 2024)

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

* previously unreleased on CD or LP

Disc 1

1. Introduction *
2. Born Under a Bad Sign *
3. Texas Flood *
4. Call It Stormy Monday
5. “Old Times”
6. Pride and Joy
7. Ask Me No Questions
8. “Pep Talk”
9. Blues At Sunrise

Disc 2

1. “Turn It Over”
2. Overall Junction
3. Match Box Blues
4. “Who is Stevie?”
5. Don’t Lie to Me
6. I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town *
7. Outro *

All tracks recorded live at CHCH-TV Studios, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada – 12/6/1983